Chris Duncan graduated from the University of Michigan in 2013 after studying Screen Arts & Cultures with a minor in economics. As a co-founder of Filmic Productions, he spent time learning every aspect of the work from creative strategy and direction to cinematography and copywriting. Yet, his favorite feature of creative work is its often-untapped potential to enact positive change. 4Creative's
Meet the Superhumans and the nonprofit projects tackled by the brilliant minds at Droga5 inspire Chris by going beyond a certain level of engagement with viewers in order to jumpstart positive thinking and action throughout the world.
Chris plans to continue pursuing creative advertising as a copywriter while also lending whatever skills he can to organizations working towards optimistic and altruistic goals.
Roddy Hyduk graduated from the University of Michigan in 2013 with a BA in Screen Arts & Cultures. A co-founding member of Filmic Productions, his contributions have ranged from creative strategy and cinematography to post-production, branding, and design. He finds inspiration in the commercial direction of Daniel Mercadante, the feature film work of directors Terrence Malick and Sofia Coppola, the fine art of Robert Ryman, and the spontaneity of the late stand-up comedian Mitch Hedberg.
Roddy plans to continue his career in creative advertising in New York City after two months of international travel this summer.
Cinema Everywhere
Making the decision to major in
Screen Arts & Cultures at the University of Michigan wasn't easy. Carving out opportunities in the film and entertainment industries, where many SAC graduates find themselves after graduation, is a daunting task. But after taking one production course in the program during our sophomore year of college, we became hooked on the creative process inherent to the craft. Only after this experience, however, did we realize the potential to take the skills developed in our production coursework and apply them to a much larger mission to support our school.
Filmic Productions, the student-run creative agency we co-founded during our sophomore year at U-M, has been the cornerstone for not just our work, but also the better part of our undergraduate experience. Alongside our formal studies, we have collectively completed over 20 production projects for a diversity of university clients within the last three years. We have tackled internal and external marketing and communications problems for the university by developing solutions through a progressive yet critical lens – questioning the source of our messaging, the voice it is delivered in, and the impressions we make on our audiences with each view.
Leading the work from concept to final deliverables, Filmic expanded the sphere in which we learned beyond the technicalities of filmmaking. It has given us insight into team dynamics and showed us where our strengths and weaknesses lie within those teams. It has given us the ability to recognize opportunities and the confidence to capitalize on them. And, it has allowed us to gain an understanding of what might ignite our passions upon entering any industry in the future. We feel that these lessons are valuable for all graduates.
After reflecting on our paths through college, we have translated our experiences into the following pieces of advice.
1. Find people that challenge and motivate you to do your best work.
We were lucky enough to have our core team randomly assigned to us for our first short film through Screen Arts. The initial chemistry was apparent after this collaboration, so we decided to take on projects beyond narrative production. We quickly learned that covering all facets of this work required seeking out more and more outstanding contributors who could continually raise our standards. A surefire benefit of attending the University of Michigan was that we never had to look too far to find amazing talent. As we grew the team, this was the difference-maker.
One of the first projects we undertook as a collective was a series of promotional videos for a graduate program called The Erb Institute. A joint venture between the Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment, it was our first time creating communications for an academic program. The approach was simple: shoot plenty of interview content and intercut it with B-roll of the students and facilities to paint a cohesive picture of the program's offerings. Yet, in executing this, you would have thought our team was making the next multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. We created storyboards and shot lists. We held location scouts for each of the 14 interviews. We had a full crew on set each day and introduced new equipment into our arsenal as the shoot progressed to heighten the production value. We set the stakes high, and pushed each other to our full potential. No one wanted to let the rest of the team down. Our producer was coordinating impossible schedules, thereby forcing the directors of photography to work obsessively to uphold the quality of the images. We were operating in the moment and nothing else mattered, thriving off the borderline-manic work ethic of those around us.
2. Make the most of every opportunity
In our Screen Arts coursework, we considered ourselves producers of cinema. A rather grandiose mindset, we were motivated partly by the prospects of our work eventually reaching the silver screen for our fellow students and friends to see at the end of a term. Yet, with the formation of Filmic came an evolved understanding of our efforts. Coining the motto, "Cinema Everywhere," represented this shift alongside a newfound appreciation for the art of commercial production. We set out to evoke a sense of wonder from the story of the University of Michigan and make the realities of Ann Arbor the cinematic. The audience became the global university community, while the movie drew from our personal narrative as students.
Coincidentally enough, our second opportunity lent us more eyes and ears than any movie theater could ever provide – Michigan's football stadium, the Big House. Shortly after we completed the first two pieces for the Erb Institute, the Division of Student Affairs at the university approached us with a need to produce 4 PSAs for small university programs. Complex in subject matter and diverse in messaging, we set out to develop original 30-second spots dealing with alcohol abuse prevention, anti-homophobia, sexual assault prevention, and mutual respect. We recognized an opportunity to work with a great deal of creative freedom and rethink how a PSA could communicate to a student audience. We took pride in the causes of the programs and built the stories with the students and faculty that surrounded us each day. Screening at the Big House during football games to over 114,000 fans did not cap an end to Filmic's success, but rather signaled the beginning of many more opportunities to impact the university in ways we never imagined. In our eyes, the PSAs were the full realization of a new take on cinema.
3. Do work that excites you, and it could very well excite others.
Our creative process has been messy. But it is this mess that has allowed for moments of brilliance to arise anywhere at anytime from anyone. Pulling from the TV spot that played over and over during the Olympics, the campaign for the non-profit that so simply addressed a complex global problem, and even our own minds during the five minutes per-day removed from technology (in the shower), we found that ideas are unpredictable yet full of potential. We never knew what would shape the next project, but drawing from work that inspired us was always where we started. We learned to recognize that individual contributions are never inherently bad – they might not fit into the puzzle at that specific point in the process, but maybe in the future they very well could. In all instances, bringing ideas to the table that resonated with us as individuals generated an excitement around every project amongst the entire team. This alone was an invaluable asset to the Filmic experience.
The Letter M, the video we produced for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions in the fall of 2012, demonstrated just how infectious this collaborative energy could be. After the creative strategy was developed, we sequenced the shot list through the collective input of the entire 20-member first- and second-generation Filmic teams. Shooting 45 scenes in just over a month was something that absolutely required investment from the whole team (a task existing alongside 16+ credits of coursework per member). If passion for the project were absent, this piece would not have come to life. We recognize and are thankful for all these contributions to this project and beyond.
As recent graduates of the University of Michigan, we look back on our education with an understanding of the depth of its offerings. The Screen Arts & Cultures program offered us a tangible platform to build skills and knowledge of the craft, and the university provided us the boundless environment for an organization like Filmic to be established and flourish. As we move our separate ways to gain professional experience outside the university, we will look back on these three years with Filmic as some of the most incredible learning opportunities we will ever have.